Okay I made myself sad. I looked back at that old fic I wrote where Steve loses the plot and spotted that I wrote Clint as the one Tony goes to when he realises they might have to put Steve down for good, like in CW ii Bruce went to Clint to ask him to stop him for good if needed why do everyone ask this of Clint and that’s why I’m sad.

@copperbadge

Bucky frowned at Clint, left hand still curved around the handle, body blocking the small gap between the door and frame.

“Where’s Steve?” he asked, because by all accounts Steve was at a meeting with people including Clint and if Clint were here and Steve not-

“Relax, he had errands to run,” Clint said, and held up a stack of pizza boxes topped with a six-pack of horrendously cheap beer. “Pizza?”

Bucky looked him up and down suspiciously, all the way from his undone sneakers to the quiver on his back to the band-aid on his forehead, and then back again for good measure.

“You want to come in and eat pizza and drink beer?” he asked slowly, not quite getting it. Steve’s friends were weird.

Clint nodded. “Yup.”

“Why?”

Clint just shrugged, the corner of his mouth hitching in a not quite smile. “Buddy, if I told you, I’d have to kill you.”

SEE. His plan is working perfectly!

***

“So then I said to him, pal if you wanted me to shoot it you should have painted it green!” Clint said, and Steve smiled, because it was a pretty good joke.

He took another bite of pizza, one hand still wrapped around the narrow glass coke bottle Clint had dug up from somewhere.

“Anyway, that’s how I got this one,” Clint said, pointing to a scar on his forearm, crossing the top of his wrist under his watch. “Ruined my super fly Swatch, too.”

“I’d have one about here, if I scarred,” Steve said, pointing to his bicep. “Hydra guy with a knife, right before Bucky picked him off from a thousand yards. Not really as funny, I suppose.”

“Well, they don’t all have to be howlers,” Clint said, biting into his slice of pizza.

“So…did you need to talk about something?” Steve asked.

Clint shook his head and said, around a full mouth of food, “Nah, why?”

“Oh, just…you’re here, with food and all…”

“Eh, Bucky said a couple of days ago that you liked the glass bottles for the Coke, and I happened to find some in this little bodega in Bed-Stuy and the, you know, the aesthetic is wasted on me,” Clint said, holding up his phone. “You look like some old dude painted you into a soda fountain.”

I’m so sad I can’t find the image that went with this, but it was just Clint running away from something. Which inspired the following chat…

coppersam: oh my god for a second I thought this was grown-up Calvin from Calvin and Hobbes, not Clintcoppersam: And now I want a fic where Calvin grew up to be Clintlow fur: That would be the weirdest crossover ever.kungfunurse: that seems very oddly appropriate from what I know of comic!clintlow fur: Wait, who would be Hobbes?bookbabe: Natashalow fur: That would fit.coppersam: Clint keeps adopting troublemakers who like tuna sandwiches. “When I was a kid I thought my stuffed tiger was real. Turns out she was real and she was a Russian assassin.”low fur: LOL, I just realised that would make Steve and Tony Clint’s exasperated parents.bookbabe: ….are they not?low fur: Well I mean yes, but now imagine Tony listening to Clint complain about sludge for food.coppersam: “It’s called a SMOOTHIE”low fur: Poor Dummy, he tries so hard but its kale you know, it’s GREEN.low fur: Wait can we make Bucky Susy?coppersam: you know honestly Bucky fits Hobbes even better than Natasha. Half-imaginary, violent, hides from other peoplelow fur: Hobbes is very good at guerilla attacks. From high places.bookbabe: I can’t see either natasha or bucky wearing jams thoughlow fur: I can’t imagine Natasha willingly going on a kamikaze sleigh ride through the woods more than once. But I can see Bucky doing it.low fur: Also I can’t stop laughing at the thought of Steve’s expression.bookbabe: Steve “it builds character” Rogerscoppersam: Well I’m talking more about metaphor than direct transposition. Like Clint had a wild stuffed tiger as a kid…now he has replaced it with Bucky Barneskungfunurse: Honestly I can see a grown up clint with a beat up stuffed tiger in his quiver who takes it everywhere and refuses to talk about it. But is caught having EXTENDED metaphysical conversations with the stuffed tiger when the thinks he’s alonelow fur: The question we then have to ask is does Clint’s belief that Hobbes is real transpose to reality? Or even - does Loki assume Hobbes is real because that’s what Clint believes so strongly? And thus the next time Loki attacks or whatever, he looks around for an attack tiger…

Not quite the same, but someone did write a series where Calvin goes to work for Tony and Thor can see Hobbes.